Caron Lindsay

Nick and Miriam join Lorraine to talk about inspiring women and school meals – and grate cheese

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 6th November 2014 - 11:48 am

Nick Clegg got cheesy yesterday morning on ITV’s Lorraine show. He was helping their chef make ragu for going on bonfire baked potatoes and was entrusted with chopping onion, carrot and celery and grating cheese which he seemed to carry out with reasonable competence. My mind boggled a bit when he asked which bit of the grater he should use. It was for going on top of a baked potato. It didm’t really matter.

Anyway, he took the opportunity to talk about the successful introduction of his school meals policy. This was not a serious political interview. It was never going to be, but it is quite nice to see well-informed discussion of the issues in an informal way. I think Nick should be doing much more of these things. You can watch him here.

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes…Putting mental health at the top of the agenda

By Paul Burstow | Thu 6th November 2014 - 10:13 am

Mental health is so often in the news for the wrong reasons its good to finally have a few things to cheer about. Last month, though little noticed, Nick Clegg announced the start of a genuinely preventative programme in mental health with the launch of a series of front line mental health support pilots for blue light workers. People working in the emergency services experience some of the highest levels of work related stress, so it is absolutely the right place to start. And with poor mental health costing UK businesses £26 billion a year, taking mental health seriously in the workplace needs to be on every employers’ agenda – with government leading the way.

This followed on from ministerial commitment from Norman Lamb to continue funding for Time to Change, the campaign to end mental health stigma, and a rallying call for all FTSE 100 companies to sign up. It is a clear statement that good mental health should matter to all of us, and its heartening to see that companies like Royal Mail, Marks and Spencer and Barclays have already come on board.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

“Lib Dems have made majority Conservative rule in Britain less likely for perhaps a generation”

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th November 2014 - 9:27 pm

Rafael-BehrRafael Behr, formerly of the New Statesman now at The Guardian, is my favourite political columnist. A brilliant writer, he is also dispassionately shrewd. So it is today, when he analyses the impact of the Lib Dems in Coalition.

It’s inspired by Norman Baker’s resignation – which, he rightly observes “says more about the Home Office than it does about the coalition more widely” – and examines how the Conservatives being forced to share power with the Lib Dems in Coalition has squeezed out what remains of liberal Conservatism:

It is true that the Lib Dems have inflicted serious damage on the Tories, but not in the way many of them seem to think.

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged | 41 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Lorely Burt’s Conservative opponent lectures her on sexism

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 5th November 2014 - 9:17 pm

It all started with an innocent tweet from Solihull MP Lorely Burt:

It’s all about this story in which Steve Webb plans to allow payment habits, good or bad, of absent parents who pay maintenance for their children. If an absent parent doesn’t pay their maintenance, then this information, passed on to credit reference agencies, could stop them getting credit or a mortgage You shouldn’t require an incentive like that to actually provide for your children, but, unfortunately, some people do.

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NewsHound

A good night for marijuana – US mid-term elections

By NewsHound | Wed 5th November 2014 - 5:54 pm

USA Flag - Some rights reserved by freefotoukFiveThirtyEight has certainly shone through as an excellent resource in these US Mid-term elections. On that website, at the end of a long night, Harry Enten wrote the excellent headline above with these reflections:

In addition to Republican governors, Republican senators and minimum wage increases, marijuana had a good night. Recreational marijuana easily won in Oregon and Washington, D.C., and it’s currently leading in Alaska.

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Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged and | 4 Comments
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Paul Walter

Information on party committee candidates

By Paul Walter | Wed 5th November 2014 - 4:54 pm

libby on the wall3Calderdale Liberal Democrats punch above their weight when it comes to enhancing the internal democratic processes of the party.

Leading up to our conferences, we see Calderdale Lib Dems positively gushing forth with amendments to motions. They even offer to help other local parties with amendments if needed.

Local party chair Jennie Rigg is now helping party democracy in an extra way. Where she can contact them, Jennie is putting a series of questions to each candidate in the Liberal Democrat committee elections.

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

Norman Baker – one of the most popular Lib Dem ministers among party members

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th November 2014 - 3:45 pm

LibDemVoice has been surveying party members throughout the Coalition to find out how well-rated (or otherwise) Lib Dem ministers are. All these results, together with our regular Coalition tracker series, are available online here.

Here’s how Norman Baker has performed in these surveys in the four-and-a-half years he’s been a minister, first at Transport, latterly at the Home Office. The figures below are the net satisfaction ratings (ie, those very/quite satisfied minus those very/quite dissatisfied):

ldv - norman baker ratings

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged and | 5 Comments
Newsmoggie

LibLink: Tim Farron – Don’t blame immigrants – sort our problems

By Newsmoggie | Wed 5th November 2014 - 2:54 pm

Tim Farron Social Liberal Forum conference Jul 19 2014 Photo by Paul WalterWriting in the New Statesman, Tim Farron says we should direct our focus on solving this country’s housing shortage and wage inequalities problems, rather than blaming immigrants for our problems:

Looking at poll after poll shows that many communities are worried about the impact of immigration. I do understand their concerns. But it would be hugely disrespectful to the British public if we looked at those polls, and the problems they highlighted, and weren’t honest about the underlying drivers.

…

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Newsmoggie

Norman’s conquest: Mr Baker ‘will be missed’ – Independent

By Newsmoggie | Wed 5th November 2014 - 1:54 pm

normanbakerAs he quits mud-wrestling with Theresa May to spend more time with Piccadilly Circus (available in all good music outlets), Norman Baker receives very high praise indeed in an Independent editorial today. “The outgoing minister was more than just a troublemaker in the Home Office”, says the strapline, with the article including this passage:

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Paul Walter

Champagne corks popping at party HQ?

By Paul Walter | Wed 5th November 2014 - 12:54 pm

Champagne cork popping photo by Brent SchneemanTim Farron was on Radio Four’s Today yesterday morning. He was talking about Norman Baker’s resignation. In passing, when interviewer John Humphrys mentioned the party potentially losing lots of MPs at the next election, Tim mentioned that the Lib Dems went up by three percentage points in this week’s Lord Ashcroft poll.

When Humphrys said he would mention that this was just one optimistic poll for the party amidst many pessimistic polls, Tim joked that “at party HQ they might not hear you above the sound of champagne corks popping”.

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Posted in Polls | Tagged , and | 15 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Clegg backs Fawcett Society over feminism t-shirt

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 5th November 2014 - 11:54 am

Nick Clegg has said that he believes that the Fawcett Society would never have knowingly commissioned their “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt if they had been thought it had been produced in the conditions described by the Mail on Sunday. The Standard has the story:

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Adam Corlett

Opinion: No taxation without explanation – tax summaries are welcome but flawed

By Adam Corlett | Wed 5th November 2014 - 10:54 am

budget breakdownStarting yesterday, and over the next month or so, ‘tax summaries’ will be delivered to 24 million taxpayers, detailing how much income tax and National Insurance they paid in 2013-14, and where that money went. You can see examples here.

As Nick Clegg said in 2012, this will deliver “greater transparency accountability in government … empowering citizens” with information on what they pay in, and how their taxes are spent. It sounds rather like the ‘Annual Tax Contract’ policy from the party’s manifesto in 1997 and 2001:

No taxation without explanation: Central Government should inform taxpayers of the ways in which their money is raised and spent, just as local councils now do.

You can draw your own conclusions from the pie chart on the right, but it looks like these annual tax summaries will be important.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 25 Comments
NewsHound

Clegg: We may need to “reserve places” for women candidates

By NewsHound | Wed 5th November 2014 - 9:54 am

Nick Clegg Q&A - Some rights reserved by Liberal DemocratsAppearing on BBC3’s “Free speech” Nick Clegg said Westminster is a “ludicrously clapped out place” which, on Wednesdays at lunch time, resembles “Downton Abbey gone a bit loopy”. He also said he favoured a “one off” measure to increase the number of Liberal Democrat women candidates:

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Posted in News | Tagged | 27 Comments
Alisdair Calder McGregor

Opinion: Limited Devolution may be ok for Manchester, but Yorkshire deserves better

By Alisdair Calder McGregor | Wed 5th November 2014 - 8:54 am

Yorkshire DalesThe news that George Osborne is offering further powers to Manchester (if – and only if – they turn their backs on the democratic will of the people and implement an elected Mayor in spite of Manchester voting “No” to having one) has been enthusiastically accepted by the Manchester Labour Party, because, as with all local Labour parties, they very much prefer a government that cannot be scrutinized and wields power in secret, unaccountable meetings.

Yorkshire deserves far better than this Tory & Labour stitch-up of an end-run around democracy and accountability.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 44 Comments
Paul Walter

US Mid-term elections: Republicans sweep all before them

By Paul Walter | Wed 5th November 2014 - 5:58 am

Stars and stripes, US flag - Some rights reserved by :: Wendy ::
At about 04:30 our time, ABC News projected that the Republicans would win the US Senate in the Mid-term elections. They did so as they called Iowa and North Carolina for the “Grand Old Party”. In virtually every race, where the Democrats had a slight chance, they lost. Nate Silver reckoned, as ABC News made their declaration, that the Republicans could finish with as many as 55 Senate seats.

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Posted in LDVUSA and News | Tagged | 12 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Belinda Brooks-Gordon on Women’s Hour speaking out against “Nordic Model” on sex work

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 4th November 2014 - 3:16 pm

IMG_9128Today the Commons debates amendments to the Modern Slavery Bill which would criminalise the purchase of sex. Sarah Noble argued against this approach yesterday. The party emphatically passed policy which rejected this “Nordic Model” on the basis that all the evidence suggests that this puts sex workers in danger.

Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon, who summated on that motion at Conference, debated the issue on Women’s Hour on Radio 4 with the amendment’s proposer Fiona McTaggart MP. You can listen here from about 20 minutes in.

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The Voice

Willott and Hunter stand down as Assistant Government Whips, Burt and Brake take over

By The Voice | Tue 4th November 2014 - 1:48 pm

Jenny Willott has stepped down as Assistant Government Whip to free herself up to concentrate on her constituency and to be able to speak in the House of Commons. Here are the letters exchanged between Jenny and Nick Clegg in full:

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Caron Lindsay

++BREAKING: Lynne Featherstone to replace Norman Baker at Home Office, Lindsay Northover to go to DFID

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 4th November 2014 - 12:52 pm

I have to say I’m pretty chuffed with Nick Clegg’s announcement that Lynne Featherstone is going back to the Home Office for the final 6 months of this Government. She spent the first two years there and in that time did all the set-up work for the Same Sex Marriage Bill. Since she’s been at DFID, she’s maintained a good working relationship with the Home Office because she’s been implementing a cross-Government plan to tackle FGM that involves them. I hope that she might also be able to dig her Transgender Action Plan out of the long grass where it’s …

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Iain Roberts

Opinion: Why I signed up for Devo Manc and a mayor for Greater Manchester

By Iain Roberts | Tue 4th November 2014 - 11:55 am

On Monday morning I was very pleased to be able to sign up to Devo Manc. I was deputising for Stockport’s Lib Dem leader Sue Derbyshire, joined in Manchester Town Hall by the leaders of the other nine Greater Manchester authorities along with George Osborne.

The Greater Manchester devolution deal came out of months of negotiation with the government, and it gives the city region more devolved powers than anywhere else in England, London included. I was surprised at how much we got. To give one example, I was assured just weeks ago that a regulated bus network for Greater Manchester was quite impossible: the DfT would never allow it. Yet there it is, in the deal.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 55 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Norman Baker’s advice to his successor: Be firm, be fair, be courteous, promote Lib Dem policies – but don’t give in

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 4th November 2014 - 10:44 am

Norman Baker’s departure from Government has been done in a clear, principled and utterly reasonable manner. In an interview with the BBC’s Norman Smith shown on the BBC News Channel, he even praised Theresa May as formidable, intelligent and competent, before saying her problem was that she didn’t recognise that she was in a Coalition Government. Here are the highlights of the interview:

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Posted in News | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

How – or will – Nick Clegg replace Norman Baker in the home office?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 4th November 2014 - 8:45 am

jenny willottNorman Baker’s decision to quit as Lib Dem home office minister — citing significant differences with his boss at the department, the Tories’ Theresa May — means a vacancy has opened up. How will Nick Clegg fill it? We’re unlikely to have long to wait, but here are what I see as his options…

Nick could simply promote a current MP. If he does so, then the obvious choice would be Jenny Willott. She covered Jo Swinson’s maternity leave at the business department, earning good reviews along the way. A promotion …

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Stephen Tall

++ Norman Baker quits as Home Office minister

By Stephen Tall | Mon 3rd November 2014 - 10:45 pm

Norman BakerNorman Baker, appointed Lib Dem home office minister just over a year ago, is to quit his government post and “launch a stinging attack on Theresa May”, according to the Independent:

Norman Baker, the crime prevention minister, is stepping down after a year of internal battles within the Home Office with his Conservative boss.

In a scathing verdict on Ms May’s leadership, Mr Baker warned that support for “rational evidence-based policy” was in short supply at the top of her department.

The Lib Dem has publicly clashed with Ms May on issues including drugs policy and immigration.

He told The Independent yesterday that the experience of working at the Home Office had been like “walking through mud” as he found his plans thwarted by the Home Secretary and her advisers.

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Stephen Tall

Immigration: are you more clued-up than the British public?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 3rd November 2014 - 8:07 pm

immigrationHere’s your starter for three:

People sometimes talk about ‘net immigration’, meaning the difference between the number of people coming to Britain each year to live, and the number leaving Britain to live in another country. What do you think is the current level of net immigration into Britain? If you are not sure, please give your best guess.

More than two million a year
Between one and two million a year
Between 500,000 and one million a year
Between 400,000 and 500,000 a year
Between 300,000 and 400,000 a year
Between 200,000 and 300,000 a year
Between 100,000 and 200,000 a year
Between 50,000 and 100,000 a year
Less than 50,000 a year

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Posted in Polls | Tagged , and | 36 Comments
Katherine Bavage

Presidential candidates respond to Rock the Boat

By Katherine Bavage | Mon 3rd November 2014 - 5:00 pm

rocktheboatReaders may not all be familiar with ‘Rock the Boat – Lib Dems against sexual harassment’ given our semi-unofficial status within the party. We are not a formal association or SAO and we are mostly organised through networking and a private facebook group.

Launched in early 2013 in response to the first Channel 4 allegations about Lord Rennard’s behaviour, the group was a response from grassroots members to a fervent desire that the issues raised be thoroughly addressed in the party.

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Posted in Party Presidency | Tagged , , , and | 11 Comments
Mary Reid

LibLink: Norman Lamb on integrated funding for health and care

By Mary Reid | Mon 3rd November 2014 - 4:12 pm

Norman LambIn an interview with Public Finance Norman Lamb says that he has his sights on 2018, as the date by which all health and care spending will be pooled in England. He said:

I want the approach to evolve rather than having anything imposed. The only imposition is to say that we have got to get budgets pooled locally completely, and I’ve talked to a lot of people about this and I think we’ve come up with a neat solution to achieve the pooled budget without a national reorganisation, which nobody wants.

The Better Care Fund seems to me to be the sensible way of achieving that objective, to progressively increase the extent of the pooling, and as you do that I think you remove the perverse consequences of the gaming across the boundary between the two.

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Joan Walmsley

Joan Walmsley writes … Campaigning in York

By Joan Walmsley | Mon 3rd November 2014 - 2:38 pm

Baroness Walmsley and Cllr Keith Aspden at CastlegateI visited York recently to campaign with our council group there, led by Councillor Keith Aspden, on a couple of important local issues.

One was the Labour decision to close a multi-agency youth advice centre at Castlegate without putting appropriate alternative provision in place. This very successful centre has helped thousands of young people with issues to do with jobs, housing, benefits, drugs, education courses and a whole lot of other matters, many of them linked together. That’s why the multi-agency model is so effective. We were able to highlight how short-sighted the Labour Group were to propose closing it down.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 9 Comments
Scott Stables

Opinion: Will the EU miss us if we leave?

By Scott Stables | Mon 3rd November 2014 - 12:30 pm

clegg merkelIt was central to David Cameron’s EU bargaining position: the assumption that ultimately the EU would do everything it could to avoid our exit. It would yield to every request placed upon it because, after all, the UK is important. It is a bargaining position that has been fatally undermined by Angela Merkel as she suggested that the UK has reached a “point of no-return”, and that if the UK maintains its pressure on allowing curbs on EU migration she would be prepared to see the UK leave. In other words, the principles of the EU are more important than one individual member.

This rationale, although likely to frustrate sentiments of British Exceptionalism displayed by some, is not wholly surprising. Rewriting fundamental aspects of any political settlement does not come easy, perhaps precisely because relenting on one aspect of an institution undermines the ability to stand up to other requests for substantial renegotiation.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 36 Comments
Sarah Noble

Opinion: Why Liberal Democrats must oppose any criminalisation of sex workers

By Sarah Noble | Mon 3rd November 2014 - 10:50 am

Amsterdam red light district by Trey Ratcliff On Tuesday, Parliament will debate the Report Stage of the Modern Slavery Bill, and in particular, an amendments that would criminalise the purchase of sex in England and Wales, similar to the one that was passed in Northern Ireland just a couple of weeks ago. It’s important that, as Liberal Democrats, we oppose those amendments.

When Belinda Brooks-Gordon and I, with the help of too many sex workers to list, put forward a policy motion towards safer sex work at Conference in Glasgow,

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Greg Webb

East Midlands Regional Conference Report: useful training, policy debates, Presidential hustings and inspiring speeches

By Greg Webb | Mon 3rd November 2014 - 8:55 am

I’d thought about going to Liberal Democrat conferences before, but always ended up doing something else on the day. But this time, the East Midlands Regional Conference, which took place on Saturday, was on a date I could do. It seemed worth trying it at least once!

It’s difficult to know quite what to expect when attending an event as a first timer, or whether it’s typical, but the Conference definitely had a significant amount on and a healthy turnout. We opened with training sessions on canvassing, fundraising and being a returning officer, with good content from experienced speakers and useful discussion among the group.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #396

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd November 2014 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 396th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (26 October-1 November, 2014), together with a hand-picked quintet, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment
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